


buried in water

by pyralite (cardialCatharsis)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 07:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2764601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardialCatharsis/pseuds/pyralite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There are three layers of oceanic zones,” Armin read out, fingers tracing the printed words almost reverently, “They are called the euphotic zone, the disphotic zone and the aphotic zone.”<br/>Eren frowned, “Isn’t the ocean just one big body of water? That’s what you said before.”<br/>“Well, yes.” Armin clarified, nibbling on his lip and trying to find the right words, “But it’s really big and really deep! So there are different layers of deepness.”<br/>“Ohhh. So like those big cakes on display at the bakery.” Eren nodded sagely.<br/>“Yeah! Something like that.”<br/>-<br/>Armin sinks deeper when nobody notices. Time is an anchor that won't ever let him float.</p>
            </blockquote>





	buried in water

 

“There are three layers of oceanic zones,” Armin read out, fingers tracing the printed words almost reverently, “They are called the euphotic zone, the disphotic zone and the aphotic zone.”

Eren frowned, “Isn’t the ocean just one big body of water? That’s what you said before.”

“Well, yes.” Armin clarified, nibbling on his lip and trying to find the right words, “But it’s really big and really deep! So there are different layers of deepness.”

“Ohhh. So like those big cakes on display at the bakery.” Eren nodded sagely.

“Yeah! Something like that.”

 

**_The euphotic zone,_ _also called the sunlit zone, receives enough sunlight to support photosynthesis. It is the one closest to the surface and is the best lit._**

 

When Eren first met Armin Arlert, he thought that the boy was pretty.

 

Pretty like a princess in a fairy tale, with that hair like spun gold threads, and that skin like polished china cups. He hid behind his mother’s legs and peeked out timidly, like a scared animal.

Eren never had much luck with animals, while his mother stopped on the street to talk to the local seamstress, he stretched out his arm to beckon a stray cat closer. When it finally got close enough to pet, just one touch of his palm was enough for the cat to go screeching and scratching at him before running away. His mother told him he was being too rough, the seamstress lady just laughed and called it passion.

But he didn’t want to scare this animal away, Armin was much sweeter-looking than that rangy old cat, so he stretched out his hand once again in an invitation to come closer. The blonde boy treaded slowly towards him, cautiously lifting up his hands to brush his fingers with Eren’s.

 

“Ah, Armin, this is Eren.” Armin’s mother said, pausing her conversation with Eren’s mother to introduce the two boys. “He’s your age too.”

“Hi Armin!” Eren grinned, and Armin moved his fingers back to their place at the sides of his hips. Eren was slightly disappointed.

“Hello…” He said softly, finally gracing Eren with a timid smile. The apples of his round cheeks were starting to stain pink, Eren felt like cupping them. So he did.

The suddenness of the action caused Armin to jump.

“W-what are you doing?” He asked, eyes growing wide in surprise. When he had brought his hands up to feel Armin’s face, the force of the movement had almost slapped him in the face. But Eren was holding him carefully now, with a measured strength as if he was made of glass.

“Your cheeks are smooth.” Eren replied, as if that was a reasonable response, “Like a doll.”

“O-oh…” Armin said, still pretty confused as to exactly what was happening. His face was growing pinker and pinker by the second.

 

From behind them, their mothers giggled.

 

-

 

When Armin first brought out the forbidden books, Eren was shocked. The blonde boy was as docile as a baby deer, he wasn’t one to just break the rules like that.

His mother had always said to follow the rules, to stay in line so that he wouldn’t be punished. Eren was awfully bad at that, he didn’t mean to pick fights with the boys in the neighbourhood, but they were just really mean people and when they bullied Armin he just snapped.

But Armin was a good boy, he listened to adults and did his chores, even his mom said that he was a lovely kid.

 

“Aren’t these books banned?” Eren said, immediately, Armin froze up and clutched the tome to his chest in equal protectiveness and disappointment.

“Yes...they are.” Armin replied, still holding his book tightly, “Are you…are you going to tell on me?”

Eren’s eyes widened. Tell on Armin? That was something he wouldn’t ever think about.

What if he had to go to jail? Eren’s mind raced through thoughts of Armin’s little wrists bound in freezing metal cuffs, him sitting in a dusty, dirty cell all lonely and sad and- Nope, Eren was never going to put Armin through that. Not his best friend in the whole world.

“Of course not!” Eren said loudly, standing up from their spot on the grass. Armin yanked him down quickly and whispered for him to be quiet, there wasn’t anybody for miles, but it never hurt to be careful.

“Okay. So do you wanna look inside?” Armin asked, eyes already sparkling with excitement.

Eren frowned, he still wasn’t sure about Armin’s sudden surge of rebelliousness, but he didn’t want to disappoint him. Plus, it wasn’t as if he was not curious as well.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

The smile Armin gave him was brighter than sunshine, Eren was sure that the sight of that smile had burnt itself into his memory forever.

His heart beat faster as Armin put a hand on his own. “Ready?” He asked, Eren nodded dazedly. Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but Armin seemed to be glowing.

 

Together, they flipped the book open.

 

 

**_The disphotic zone, where only small amounts of light penetrate, lies below the epipelagic zone. This zone is often referred to at the Twilight Zone due to its scarce amount of light._ **

 

If before he was sunshine, now he was fire.

Eren, still woozy and confused in the aftermath of his first titan transformation, clung on to Mikasa for support to watch his best friend stand before hundreds of guns trained on them.

Through the haze of exhaustion, Armin’s words still rang true in his ears. He stood, proud and tall with his fist clenched at his chest, delivering words with clarity and strength. From behind, Eren saw his fingers trembling.

The sun shining in front of him made him seem like a supernatural being, an angel or fire bird. “Incredible…” Eren muttered to himself, “Armin, you’re incredible…”

Mikasa craned her neck to lean down and ask if he had just said something. Eren shook his head.

 

It was odd, because they had always been the ones to protect Armin. Eren could try and count the times they had reached down to offer Armin a hand up on his fingers and toes and find that he needed at least three more sets, but here they were now in a strange misbalance. It was Eren and Mikasa on the floor now, watching Armin stand up to protect them.

There is a moment of panic, and then the sound of guns being lowered.

When Armin returned there were tears falling down his cheeks and he was still shaking, but his fists were clenched tight and his eyes were burning like fire. Somehow, Eren knew that something had awoken in Armin, something had changed.

 

-

 

Sometimes he pretended that he didn’t notice Armin, always standing at the bars of his cell and looking by angrily.

“He’s a human being!” Eren heard Armin shout one night, “He’s a valued member of the Survey Corps and he deserves to be treated as such. You can’t keep him locked up like some beast!”

“Listen, brat.” The Captain whispered harshly, “I have no doubt that right now Jaeger is 100% hormonal teenager, but you’ve seen what he can do, what he can become. We don’t know what else can trigger the transformation and we don’t want this base to be rubble before we can learn that.”

“He won’t go on a rampage like that. Eren would never hurt us.” Armin insisted.

“I’m sorry, kid. But your gut feelings aren’t as strong as those metal bars. So when you prove to me that you have your boyfriend under control, by all means, take him back to the barracks.”

 

There was the sound of footsteps marching away and then a frustrated mutter, and Armin creaked open the door to his cell angrily. The guards took notice of him, and then looked away. Eren thought maybe they let him visit so much because they felt sorry for him.

“Hey.” Armin said, “You’re still awake.”

“Couldn’t really sleep.” He replied, getting off his tiny cot to stand closer to Armin. The blonde boy sighed and rested his head on the bars, Eren leaned down to kiss his head gently.

“I’m sorry I can’t do anything about this.” Armin gestured to his cell, Eren shook his head.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s fine, really. I’m fine.”

 

Armin sunk to the floor and Eren followed suit, sneaking his hand out to hold the other’s. “You know, when we were kids and you brought out those books and asked if I was gonna tell on you, I pictured you being thrown in a cell just like this one.”

“Oh?” He asked, “I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t throw a kid in jail. Maybe just confiscate the books, which would’ve been even worse actually.”

Eren laughed, “Going to jail isn’t as bad as someone taking those books away?”

Armin laughed with him, and then the sound of his giggles softened into a sad, odd smile.  “Going to jail isn’t so bad,” he said distantly, “If it was for someone I loved.”

“Something, you mean.” Eren corrected, “Because it’s for your books.”

Armin turned to him, still with his strange, faraway smile.

 

“Yeah.” He said, rubbing slow circles on Eren’s thumb. “That’s what I mean.”

 

-

 

In the familiar blur of his mind, Eren watches Armin on the back of his horse, carrying a limp Jean behind him.

He has never been afraid of Armin before, if anything, he had been worried that Armin was terrified of _him._ But he had never seen Armin so cold and calculating, standing in the eye of the storm so calmly.

 

The first time he had that sort of confrontation, he was shaking wildly. How much has changed exactly, for Armin to learn how to deliver lies as easily as breathing?

There was that look on Bertholdt’s face, like he was struggling for air. He wonders if those behind him look horrified as well, there was a 15 year old boy spitting poison through his lips with finesse, strong enough to take down a lumbering giant without even lifting a finger.

“You sons of bitches!” Bertholdt screamed, his eyes are pain and fury, “I swear I will exterminate you all!”

Then Eren was being cut free, and falling, falling, until Mikasa caught him swiftly.

But there was that lingering feeling of disease, Armin met his eyes as he fell, and the coldness of his gaze chilled him to the bone.

 

What was that he had said again? _Someone who can’t sacrifice anything, cannot ever change anything. To defeat a monster, you have to be willing to throw aside your own humanity._

Eren was no idealistic kid any longer, it just a natural result of fighting battle after battle. He knew well enough that he had blood on his hands and that his own humanity dangled by a thread.

 

He didn’t know that Armin’s did too.

 

 

**_90% of the ocean lies in the bathypelagic (aphotic) zone into which no light penetrates. This is also called the midnight zone. Water pressure is very intense and the temperatures are near freezing._ **

 

“Eren, wake up.”

Eren’s eyes fluttered open wearily as he blinked the morning’s dirt away. The sun was shining so brightly in his eyes that he found himself squinting.

“Mikasa will be here soon. We don’t have much time.” Armin said hurriedly, crouching down beside him to stroke his hair. He gave Eren a small smile, one that did not reach his empty eyes.

“Wait, what?” Eren furrowed his brows, looking around the room for the first time. This was not his cell, or a medical tent in the centre of the battlefield. “Where are we? What-“

 

The last thing he remembered was getting ready to enter a warzone. It was their last battle, and humanity’s most important. They were charging towards the Ape Titan’s lair, with that, all titans would either be exterminated or turned back into human beings.

He was an integral part of the plan, that’s what Commander Hanji had said. Armin had thought it up, explaining their formations the way he always did now, smoothly with an edge of ruthlessness.

Why was Armin abandoning his plan? What had happened? What was going o-

“Eren.” Armin said, looking at him worriedly, “You have to calm down. Everything is going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”

“Why are we leaving them like this? This wasn’t part of the plan.”

He looked away guiltily, Eren wondered if he felt guilty for leaving his comrades or guilty that he was found out.

 

Oh, Armin. What have you done?

 

“You’ll die, Eren.” Armin whispered, “If you go in there, you will die. It’s the only outcome, I tried everything but it’s inevitable.”

“And? Armin, you knew I was going to die eventually. My life is just one amongst thousands. This isn’t a big sacrifice.” Eren stared at Armin, boring holes into the side of his skull. “If I leave, won’t they all die?”

“You’ll die. You’ll die.” Armin muttered to himself, again and again, “Eren….Eren you can’t leave us. Please, you can’t die.” His legs gave way and he trembled where he kneeled, tears trickling down his sun-worn cheeks.

The rage that had been building up inside of him at the thought of Armin’s betrayal dissipated, he looked down and kissed the crown of Armin’s head soothingly. “I have to do this, Arm.”

 

Slowly, he rose from his spot. Armin looked up and his eyes widened in desperation. He grasped wildly behind his back, shaking as he stood up and aimed a gun at Eren’s chest.

A shot at this range would not kill him, but it would take hours to heal. He didn’t have those hours to spare.

“Armin…” Eren said slowly, fury shadowing his words, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Please…Please…” Armin begged, fingers trembling on the trigger, “Just wait for Mikasa, we can leave together. We can see the ocean!  Remember? We can finally see it and I can point out what each fish is called and how the waves work and-“

 

Eren stepped closer and closer until the barrel of the gun was pressed against his chest “Put the gun down, Arm. You have to stop this. I have to go, we can’t leave them. It isn’t right.”

“You having to die isn’t right!” Armin screamed, still holding the gun tightly, “We’ve done so much, there is blood on our hands that will never wash out. We did this for you. I did this because I love you. Just this once, make it easier to save you!”

The heavy tears streamed down his face and choked his words up in salt and mucus. “Mikasa was right….why- you always end up going far away from us.” Armin sobbed, “Always running off, leaving us behind…just…just stay, for once. Please? Please just think of us for once…think of yourself….”

“I _am_ thinking of you. That’s why I have to go.” Eren said looking Armin in the eye, forcing the smaller boy to look right back, “If I don’t, you’re going to die too. The titans won’t stop, we’ll always be in danger.”

He leaned down and kissed Armin, the surprise of the action leaving the gun to drop with a clunk.

Then Eren raised his hand to his mouth, and bit into the flesh hard.

 

Armin stared hopelessly as his titan form emerged, whispering to himself as his best friend ran into the heat of the battle.

 

-

 

By the time Armin had returned, the battle was already over.

Bodies littered the floor and stained the fields and trees with blood, around him, Armin’s fellow soldiers were going around lifting them up to roll in thick white sheets.

“Armin! There you are!” Jean yelled, waving him over. “Where were you? I couldn’t find you at all when we were fighting. Jesus, I thought a titan had got you.”

Armin blinked at Jean, staring blankly at the boy, “I was…I got knocked out. I just woke up.”

“Huh.” Jean muttered, looking at him suspiciously, “Alright then. Mikasa got knocked out too, got hit by a falling body while she was riding and fell off the horse.”

“Ah.”

“And Jaeger…” He continued. Armin’s face contorted in pain.

“Is he….did he….” The words refused to leave his mouth. He had resigned himself on the long ride back that Eren was dead, had to be dead. But some part of him still hoped-

“He died in battle.” Jean said quietly, like he could barely believe it himself. Armin felt bile rise up his throat. He leaned over and let the vomit rush out, splashing onto the grass and creating a sickening mixture of the blood of the fallen and his own stomach acid.

“Woah, Armin. Are you sure you didn’t have a concussion?”

“I…” Armin coughed out, “I’m fine. I’m fine, just…just-“

Jean frowned, “I’m taking you to the medical bay. Come on.”

 

The field nurses tended to him, checking his vision and his heart rate while he looked on tiredly. Beside him, a body was wheeled in on a makeshift stretcher.

“Mikasa?” He asked, recognizing the figure. She was lying still, her chest barely lifting as she breathed.

“Do you know her?” The doctor tending to her asked, “The blow to her head was quite severe. We don’t know if she’ll be waking up any time soon.”

“Oh.” Armin said, more to himself than anyone else.

The nurses declared that his nausea wasn’t anything serious, and that he hadn’t sustained any head trauma. Armin was free to return to base with the other troops.

 

He rode back wearily, barely paying attention to his surroundings as his horse approached the half-shattered walls. His superiors took note of who was left, and then they were to assemble in the courtyards and wait for Erwin to return and debrief them.

But Armin found himself drifting down the corridors, walkways littered with dust and peeling paint. He walked up stairs and then down some, treading aimlessly until he reached a familiar room made of stone brick.

He looked up and saw the bed that Eren had slept in that morning, creeping towards it carefully like approaching a ghost.

Armin sat and pulled a pillow to his face, inhaling the scent of Eren still fresh on the sheets. Then he pulled the gun from his back, calmly this time, and aimed it right at his temple.

 

He breathed in deep, and then he pulled the trigger.

 

-

 

“Eren Jaeger, died in battle.” Ex-Commander Erwin read out before the small group of soldiers frozen in their salute aboard the boat, “Armin Arlert, died in battle.”

It was kind of them to label it as that, Jean thought, when he found Armin on the floor of Eren’s cell, blood pooling around his head like a morbid halo, he had known what Armin had done.

But in honour of his invaluable contribution to the corps, both Erwin and Hanji had decided to officially call it death in combat.

The ocean around them was calm, waves lapped rhythmically against the metal hull of the ship. So this was the ocean that Armin loved so much, Jean could see why. It stretched for miles and miles, it was endless and incredible.

 

Mikasa was still in a coma, Eren had burnt himself out in that fight, and Armin….Armin had left them.

They were all at peace now, in a sad, sick sense.

 

Hanji raised her hand, and the two soldiers uncovered the urns, watching the ashes fall into the sea and float until more waves crashed over them, mixing them into the saltwater.

 

The wind blew eastward, and Jean watched the rest of the ashes dance in the breeze.

 

-

 

“Hey, Armin.” Eren whispered in his best friend’s ear, watching the stars twinkling the night sky above them.

“What?” Armin asked, turning to face him. He had been on the verge of sleeping, and his voice was soft with drowsiness.

“When we go and see the ocean, I wanna explore it all the way to the bottom.” He said, smiling, “And you’re gonna come with me!”

“Okay.” The blonde boy replied, smiling back. They grinned together like it was a secret, just between the two of them.

“We’re gonna be together forever!” Eren proclaimed, “And we’re gonna go to all those zones you talked about, promise?” He lifted up his pinky finger and thrusted it at Armin.

Armin linked his own with Eren’s pinky and squeezed them together tightly.

 

“Promise.”

-


End file.
